


The Mechanics of Wandering

by jibrailis



Category: Little Mosque on the Prairie
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-10
Updated: 2010-09-10
Packaged: 2017-10-11 15:41:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/113990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jibrailis/pseuds/jibrailis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Layla leaves home and goes to university.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mechanics of Wandering

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2010 Eid Al-Fitr Challenge. I have not seen the fourth season of _Little Mosque_ and while I don't think this fic contradicts any canon, I just want to let everyone know that. Eid Mubarak!

Mercy feels too small for Layla Siddiqui. When she is seventeen and filling out her university applications, she sits in the corner stall at the Mercy Public Library and stares out the window, her right hand wrapped around a bottle of orange juice, her left hand tapping her pencil idly. Most of the applications are online these days but Layla still needs to write a personal response. It was easy to put all these thoughts on the computer; not so easy to sit here and try to write everything out by hand. Her dad is the one who tells her that writing by hand is the best way to organize thoughts, but Layla kind of doubts the veracity of that because her dad has the most disorganized thoughts of anyone.

At seventeen, all Layla wants to do is get out. Saskatchewan is a flat expanse of land and Layla wants to see _mountains_. She likes her friends at school fine, and even has her eye on that cute boy in calculus class, but the thought of staying at home and commuting to the local college for years and _years_ puts a stone at the bottom of her stomach. 

There will be other cute boys, other classes. She hopes.

There will be other mosques too, bigger and better, and not crammed with the same people she has seen every day for her entire life and whose problems and dramas she can recite like a passage from the Qur'an. There will be imams who are not Amaar. And Layla loves Amaar, okay. She thinks he's super sweet and kind of cool for an imam, but her expectations for the hipness of imams isn't particularly high to begin with and he's _Amaar.  
_  
And the others, they're just _Yasir _and _Sarah _and _Rayyan_ and _Fatima_ and ew, _Fred Tupper_. They'll still be hanging around when she gets back. Heck, that's the point.

 

* * *

 

She gets accepted into UBC. Her dad throws her a party.

There may be pony rides involved. Layla yells at him and then hides in the bathroom until all the guests leave, awkwardly wishing her good luck in her future. Rayyan gives her a pineapple cake that's lopsided and not in the way it's supposed to be either. Layla eats it when everyone is gone and her dad is fluttering around anxiously, reminding her to pack her socks. As if she's going to forget her socks.

"Cousin Diya lives in Vancouver. You do remember Cousin Diya? You go to him if there are any problems, any whatsoever," her dad breathes in her ear. "This is his home number. This is his cell phone number. This is the cell phone number of his wife. This is his work number. This is the secret number that he doesn't want me to know but I managed to get anyway, Allah be praised!"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Layla says, chewing the pieces of pineapple. The cake actually isn't that bad. 

"And you promise to webcam with me every weekend?" her dad insists. "I will be so lonely without my Layla to keep me company."

"Sure," Layla says, though inside she wonders what in the world she and her dad would have to talk about via webcam. "I might be busy sometimes though. With, uh, assignments and all that."

"Oh." Her dad makes a strange expression. "Of course you should focus on your assignments first. You must study hard. University doesn't come cheap, you know! You can't be one of those hooligans who only shows up to class every other day and backtalks the professor just because they happened to read a Wikipedia article." He starts grumbling about his own students.

Layla finishes the cake in one go.

 

* * *

 

They drive out east. Layla gapes at the mountains in Alberta and the mirror-like surfaces of the water in B.C. "Wow," she says when they pull up to the UBC campus. "Wow," she says again, and then shuts up when the don comes out to greet her because it might be okay to be astonished in front of her dad, but she doesn't want to seem like a small town girl in front of the other students. "Hey," she says casually when the don introduces herself as Ashley.

Her dad hurries to get her bags from the trunk of the car. 

"Oof!" he grunts. "Layla, what did you pack in these? Barbells?" 

Even with saying that, he tries to hoist two boxes at once.

He topples over.

Layla buries her face in her hands. "Sorry," she says to Ashley. "He's like that sometimes."

"No problem. I've got parents too," Ashley replies cheerfully. "My mom, she likes to stand on our porch in her nightgown and wave to the mailman. Her bright neon pink nightgown."

"Okay, that's pretty bad," Layla admits. "But it can't beat this one time when my dad..." She tells the story while she walks with Ashley towards her new dorm room. Her dad trails behind them like a comet tail of luggage and complaints, but Layla hopes that if she keeps in front of him enough, maybe no one will know that he's with her. In Mercy that trick never worked because everyone knew the Siddiquis, but this is Vancouver and this is university. Things will be different, she thinks, and then winces as her dad walks into a wall.

 

* * *

 

Her dad wanted her to go into science, to become a doctor like Rayyan, but instead Layla studies English. She knows that it's disappointing. Her love of reading was a charming quirk when she was young; not so charming when it translates into her career choice -- or, as her dad puts it, her complete lack of a career choice. "What are you going to do with an English major?" her dad exclaims over their one and only webcam session. "If you're going to study a language, at least study Arabic! You already know English, don't you?"

"This is English literature," Layla explains exasperatedly. "It's different."

"Who's going to employ an English major?" her dad retorts. "Wishy-washy artsy types. I wouldn't!"

It doesn't matter. There's not much he can do when he's in Mercy and she's in Vancouver, and there's no way he'd ever be so drastic as to stop supporting her studies, no matter what they were. Well, maybe if she became a porn star, he might stop, but that's a whole different kettle of outrageous. Layla takes comfort in her security and throws herself into Beowulf and Marlowe and Woolf and Ellison. She lets their words roll over her tongue like a piece of sweet fruit, seeping in and lingering even after the bite is done. What she studied in high school doesn't compare. The professors and the students in the English department really care about the books, which is, well, _obvious_, because that's what they're supposed to do. But they care about it in a way that makes Layla feel, for once, not like a geek for knowing when Shakespeare was born or how to write in terza rima. 

She rejoices when her first essay gets her a B+. She is dejected when her second essay gets a C and a comment scribbled on the bottom by the TA about how she needs to develop her own argument.

"You want me to argue? I'll argue all you want! I'm a master at arguing," she says.

Ashley pokes her head into the room. "Uh, are you talking to your essay?"

"...maybe," Layla admits.

"You're hilarious." Ashley grins. "Want to go out for ice cream?"

 

* * *

 

It's not until two months in that Layla notices none of her university friends are Muslim. Okay, she did notice the difference earlier but it doesn't sink in until two months after the start of classes when she walks by a table advertising a fundraiser for the Muslim Students Association. Muslims must have a radar for other Muslims because the girl manning the table, with her brown hijab and colourful braces, flags Layla down on her way to class.

"Would you like to donate to a good cause?" the girl asks. "Or," she adds, peering at Layla with a rather frightening gleam in her eye, "would you like to join the association? Membership is five dollars a year and it gets you access into our club spaces, our events, and free food! Come on. You can't say no to free food."

This is how Layla feels about the Muslim Students Association: she doesn't need it. She's had enough of being a capital M Muslim in Mercy; she moved to Vancouver to get away from all that. It doesn't mean that she's abandoned her religion. She still does her best to keep Salat and observe proper dietary laws. She hasn't let herself eat anything that is haram. But she does these things discreetly, without a fuss, and joining the Muslim Students Association -- a club where the only goal is to be Muslim -- seems like a big fuss.

_This is not about shame_, she thinks later at night when she can't sleep because it's so hot in the dorms and her thoughts turn to uncomfortable realms._ I'm not ashamed._

But when Ramadan comes around, she doesn't tell anybody. Not even Ashley. She just lets them assume she's on a weight loss diet.

 

* * *

 

The girl at the booth -- her name is Samia. She's in one of Layla's electives. She's incredibly smart and clever, and Layla grows to like her in spite of it all. One day when she and Samia are studying for a test, compiling their messy notes in the middle of the table, Samia asks, "You're an English major, right?"

"Yeah," Layla says.

"Do you ever think it's weird?"

"What, literature?" Layla asks dryly.

"No, I mean, do you ever think it's weird that you're studying the works of a bunch of dead white guys? Do you ever wonder what it has to do with you?" Samia says it all so earnestly.

"There's women writers too," Layla replies. "And there's post-colonial writers who aren't white."

"But if James Joyce was walking down the street and you happened to pass him, would he say hi to you? Or would he be like, ugh, brown person? And if so, why do you continue to study him? Why do you respect his works when he wouldn't give you time of day?"

"What's that got to do with anything?" Layla says, getting angry.

"Sorry," Samia says. "I was just curious."

"James Joyce wrote really dirty letters to his wife," Layla says as if that's the right answer or just a convenient change of topic. "Really, really dirty. You'd blush if you read them."

"I don't blush at much," Samia says, and smiles.

 

* * *

 

There are things Layla loves about university. The freedom, the ability to go in and out without her dad bugging her about it, the pleasure of being treated like an adult, the other students, the liveliness, the reading. 

There are things Layla discovers that she hates about university. Such as:

"Why don't you ever go drinking with us?" Ashley asks.

"I'm not nineteen," Layla protests. 

"I can buy you a few beers and bring them over," Ashley offers.

"No thanks," Layla says.

Ashley gives her a puzzled look. Layla pretends to be fascinated by Alexander Pope.

 

* * *

 

The dating is awkward too. Layla doesn't understand those people who can meet someone during orientation week and be dating them a month later. Ashley tries to set her up with a few boys that she knows -- "They're great guys, totally sweet and sensitive," she assures her -- and Layla has to think of contrived reasons to say no. She doesn't even understand why exactly she does it. It's not like dating a few sweet, sensitive boys will be the end of the world, and Layla did want to meet people at university. But it's too much too soon, and she'd rather hang out with Samia besides. 

"The MSA is having a potluck," Samia says. "You should come. I bet there's food from home that you miss. Burgers and pizza are delish -- when halal, of course -- but when's the last time you ate some naan bread?"

"Actually, you can buy naan at any grocery store these days," Layla points out.

"Are you seriously comparing grocery store naan to my homemade naan bread of joy and excellence?" Samia laughs. "No, really, Layla, you should come."

"Maybe," Layla says. 

 

* * *

 

She gets an email from Rayyan in November.

Hey Layla! What's up? How are you doing in the big bad city? Tell me all about it.

Not much going in Mercy, though Fred did almost set fire to Fatima's the other day. Boy, it was cooking!

I hope you had a good Eid! We missed you here! Especially your dad. He was as glum as I've ever seen him.

Layla stares at the message for a long time, and then saves it into a special folder.

 

* * *

 

She thinks about her dad when she least expects it. When she passes by a guy in flip-flops in the dead chill of November, she imagines what her dad would have to say about him. When she overhears two students studying for an economics test, she wonders what tips her dad would have for them. When she sits in her room and watches TV in lieu of writing her next essay -- because let's face it, her initial eagerness for essay writing wasn't going to last for more than a few weeks -- she muses about what her dad is doing this exact minute.

Sometimes she finds herself thinking sternly in his voice. _Oh no, Layla Siddiqui, you don't want to do that. Think about your options. Don't be like the others. Be a good girl. Do fifty push-ups a day. Help the elderly cross the street. Don't talk back to your professors._

It makes her smile.

One time, when her phone is ringing and her caller i.d flashes her dad's number on the screen, she is surprised by how excited she is. And how disappointed when it turns out to be Amaar borrowing her dad's cell phone and accidentally hitting the speed dial. There's a story behind that, she's sure, and Amaar sounds strangely breathless and secretive, like he's hiding under a desk. But he has to hang up before she can ask him about it.

 

* * *

 

She writes her next English essay on the role of Safie the Arabian in Mary Shelley's _Frankenstein_. She talks about Othering, about Orientalism, about Said's critical discourse -- the ways in which it succeeds, the ways in which it fails.

She gets an A.

 

* * *

 

There's no epiphany, exactly. There's no intervention. She does end up going to one of the MSA's events but there's no bright and relieving realization about her selfhood or anything else. There's no good people or bad people. Ashley drinks too much and occasionally does pot, but she's also unfailingly generous and nurses Layla through an awful cold. Samia is bright and culturally aware, but she is also fierce-tempered and impatient when she and Layla don't see eye to eye. Layla loves both of them the same way she loves her classes: whole-heartedly but with not without moments of intense irritation and anger. Throughout December Layla studies and thinks and worries and has fun.

When she visits Mercy for the winter break after exams, her dad is waiting for her with open arms. "I missed you!" he declares, and there are actual tears in his eyes. "Oh, the house was so empty without you! I was always going over to Yassir's until he told me to never visit him again. And I thought about calling you, you see, but I didn't know if you wanted to hear from me, what with you being a mature adult now and--"

Layla shuts him up. She puts her arms around him and feels the scratchiness of his beard. "I missed you too," she says.

 

* * *

 

This is the now.

Much later, when she is twenty-two and has a completed degree to her name, an address book full of friends, and the whole world laid out in front of her, Layla Siddiqui returns home.  
 


End file.
